Sarah Gayle Meech

Sarah Gayle Meech

The rollicking get-togethers make it easy for friends to catch up, eat good food, and listen to the kind of old-timey country music that put Nashville on the map. "We started the parties because it had gotten so hard to see our friends with everyone's crazy schedules," says Marusic. "For some reason, 3 to 6 p.m. on Sunday proved to be the golden hours—when working musicians, nine-to-fivers, families with little kids, even our 82-year-old neighbor, could make it," Johnson adds.

In this photo: Honky-tonk songstress Sarah Gayle Meech wows the crowd with numbers from her debut album, One Good Thing.